IRIN Focus on conflict diamonds

As part of an initiative to stamp out the trade in “conflict diamonds”, industry officials from key diamond importing countries met in London on Wednesday to coordinate proposals to tighten controls. The meeting brought together trade officials from Belgium, India, Israel and the United States - countries that up until now have played a relatively minor role in the growing consensus on the need for international action on the flow of diamonds from conflict zones. “For the first time, both government and diamond industry representatives from all the key importing countries of rough diamonds will be able to sit down together to work constructively on ideas to stamp out the illicit trade in blood diamonds,” Foreign Office Minister for Africa, Peter Hain said. South Africa and Britain The British initiative follows a similar approach by the South African government and the diamond giant De Beers for a global system of certification and regulation following meetings in South Africa and Angola in May and June, attended by southern African producers. The presence of the world’s major diamond importers at the London talks is a step towards the harmonisation of draft measures aimed at suppressing the trade in gems fuelling wars in Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Sierra Leone. “It all needs to be brought into a comprehensive whole,” Alex Yearsley of the London-based pressure group Global Witness told IRIN. “We’re moving together in a positive direction but that direction needs to be maintained.” A diamond industry specialist said the task ahead was to establish a system of identification for alluvial diamonds and a paper trail of certification “from mine to market”. “All diamond producers will have to comply with certain criteria. And, rather than local regulations for diamond trading, what needs to come out is a single international standard.” She said the measures could take two to three years to implement. Towards the crunch The next crucial meeting will be in Antwerp in July involving the diamond trade bodies the International Diamond Manufacturers Association and the World Federation of Diamond Bourses. “All eyes will be on them,” Yearsley said. “It’s time for the trade to come up with a set of reforms they can implement, some agreement on a common set of objectives and goals.” Britain will also be pushing for a political commitment from government’s at next month’s G-8 summit of leading industrial nations in Tokyo. In September, Southern African Development Community (SADC) ministers will meet to review the findings of an international diamond task force. “It’s all going to come to a crunch in the next few months,” Yearsley said. Angola and DRC Two major conflicts in southern Africa, Angola and the DRC, are fuelled by diamond revenues. The Angolan rebel UNITA movement has earned vast amounts from the mining and smuggling of rough diamonds - among the best in the world - to trading centres abroad. That trade was made the target of UN sanctions in 1998, and the international campaign surrounding the issue has helped set the stage for the broader approach that is now envisaged. But in the embattled DRC a new mining consortium Oryx Diamonds is attempting to buck the trend. The joint venture partnership between the Zimbabwean company Osleg headed by Zimbabwean Defence Force Commander Lieutenant-General Vitalis Zvinavashe, and the well-connected DRC firm Comiex, had its listing turned down on the London Stock Exchange this month. It is, however, reportedly trying to list in Dublin or Canada in a further test of market sentiment towards conflict gems. Diamonds and conflict Oryx has been given a concession by the government of President Laurence-Desire Kabila to mine diamonds near the southern town of Mbuji Mayi held by Zimbabwean forces supporting Kinshasa against Rwandan and Ugandan-backed rebels. Oryx denies that its gems are “blood diamonds”, but concern has nevertheless been raised over the privatisation of the conflict in the DRC and the money made by senior officials on all sides in the war. “The war has nothing to do with ideological interest or national security but personal exploitation and enrichment,” Yearsley said. He added that the definition used by Global Witness for conflict diamonds included, as in the case of the DRC, the absence of a democratically elected government. He said that in the DRC, “diamonds are clearly being used to fund the conflict on both sides and there needs to be a system in place to ensure that revenue accrued is not used to continue the war, when the (international) initiative is for a sustainable peace.” Oryx, though, is apparently unrepentant. After holding talks with the consortium’s representatives this week, Yearsley said he believed they were “waiting for things to cool down” before trying again to go public.